At Death's Gate (on hold)

Chapter 7

Training with Hector was awesome. Not.

For exactly two weeks he let me run around in circles and do push-ups. My arms hurt, my legs hurt, I got burned because Coach forgot to deactivate the burning floor (or Hector activated it deliberately) and that also really hurt. In general, I just really hurt. And we hadn't even started with sword fighting yet.

"I am done", I declared after my shorts started smelling like a campfire. "I have been running for two weeks and you only sit on that bench reading a book!"

Hector looked up and very slowly raised a single eyebrow at me. "And your problem is what exactly?"

I was fuming. If I hadn't known better, I would've throttled him, but I really didn't want to see his death. Mainly because then I couldn't imagine me doing it anymore.

"I turn fifteen in four days and all I did every day was running around in circles!", I explained in a rather loud voice.

"How am I supposed to be able to use a sword if I have held one for only five minutes?" I was pretty sure I was yelling by now.

Hector wasn't faced by it. Slowly and deliberately he closed his book and crossed his arms. "You won't learn to handle a sword in four days."

Thank you, Captain Obvious, it's not like we started this whole ordeal two weeks ago!

As I told him (I yelled), he only shook his head. "You won't learn how to handle a sword in two weeks. It either is in your blood or it isn't."

"Why did you let me run then?", I wanted to know, spreading my arms out. "Wasting your precious time here."

He grabbed his book, his sword and got up. He went to the exit and turned around a last time before leaving. "I enjoy watching you fail."

If I would've had my bow and quiver, he would've had an arrow in the back. I was still fuming when I got back to my room and Liv eyed me curiously. She sat on her bed and sorted through a whole bag of unopened letters.

"What happened?", she wanted to know.

I threw myself down on my mattress and screamed into the pillow. After letting off some steam I lifted my head to answer.

"Hector Flores told me he only 'trained' me because he enjoyed watching me fail!"

Liv's mouth dropped open in mock shock. "He did not!"

"He did!"

She watched me before bursting out in laughter as if I had told her the joke of the century. "Why are you so upset about this?", she asked me while being shaken by laugher. "You can't handle a sword for shit, Daphne, and wouldn't have been able to learn it in two weeks. So, why don't you just throw stuff at him? Play him a prank?"

What was I, nine?

"Thanks, Liv, I think I will enjoy not being in his presence at all."

We bickered for another hour before heading to bed. This night was the first I ever dreamed about death.

"What do you mean you can't find the messenger?", the black-haired boy I remembered from Heath's death yelled. "I want him delivered to me by midnight! Understood?"

He now screamed at a large group of figures in leather armor. The figures all nodded their heads, some looked beaten up badly.

The black-haired boy rams his black sword into the ground and when the group of soldiers didn't scatter, he grabbed his sword again to behead the closest.

"I told you to deliver the messenger! GO!"

The group started to run from the opening to the tree line at the sides. They looked like wild animals that ran from their hunter, afraid of dying.